A quiet day in the Commons, so I paid a visit to the Lords. On the way in I picked up a copy of the Spanish guide to the upper house, or Cámara de los Lores. It sounds more romantic in the tongue of Cervantes and Vargas Llosa. For instance, the civil servants are funcionarios del estado - you can see the black hats and thin, cruel moustaches as they ride against the ragged rebel peasants of Chihuahua.

Sorry, carried away there. It was un día de trabajo típico (a typical day at work) and they were on preguntas con asterico (starred questions). The first was about the Bank of England and its independence in the wake of Northern Rock. The Lords have more former chancellors and financial ministers than you could shake a stick at - or even Black Rod. Lord Barnett accused the US Federal Reserve of panic. Then Nigel Lawson for the opposicion said it was all very well taking control of banking from the Bank Of England, but it should have been given to a new independent body, not the already overworked FSA.

Just in case anyone felt this was only rabble-rousing opportunism, he pointed out that he had written exactly that in his book, The View From Number 11, back in 1992. There was a low rumbling from los lores, not used to having their chamber used for publicity stunts.

But it is hard to blame Lawson, when you see that his daughter's work, Nigella Express, was the second best-selling book in the UK last year. He wants to get some of that royalties action. "A few friends round for a top-level economic discussion? I always keep a few policies on the shelf, like this terrific debating point on the putative role of the FSA in banking regulation. [Coquettish smile to camera.] Mmmm!"

Then they got onto House of Lords reform, which always excites them. The peers are cross about the way the Commons keeps coming up with new ideas, then doing nothing. Lady Boothroyd, magnificent in a solid silver perm which could have protected her from small arms fire, said the government was producing a white paper "in due course". Did that mean March? Or December? "Or next year?" growled some cynic.

I dragged myself back to the Camara de los Comunes, where Margaret Moran was promoting her bill to make internet companies check the ages of their customers. She was agitated about under-18s buying knives and playing bingo on- line. "What is illegal in the real world is illegal in the virtual world," she said. It seemed a perfect capsulation of New Labour's policy on crime, in which what is happening is inextricably confused with what ought to be happening.

· This article was amended on Friday January 25 2008. In the article above we said trabjo, when we meant to say trabajo, which is Spanish for work. We also said that preguntas sin asterico(s) are starred questions. They are unstarred - sin means without. These errors have been corrected.